The DomAquarée is nothing more than a big box and the facade is - apart from the roof - a boring grid you nowadays see EVERYWHERE in Berlin. It was also built much closer to the street. The Palast Hotel gave the pavement more room.

Yes, the old picture looks brown and dirty, but try to respect the fact that it's an OLD picture.

I haven't said that the Palast Hotel was a beauty, just that the new building is, in comparison, a very boring and uninspired run-of-the-mill design, which is far too common in the city nowadays. And on top of that they squeezed it unnecessarily close to the road.

Look at almost any building of the past 20 years in Berlin. You'll see either pure glass facades or said grids (with a few exceptions). It seems as if architects have run out of ideas.

Yes, indeed those photos are very nice; of course Berlin it's a great city

btw in above photos, the old with the new photo (Palast Hotel): today is more great

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I do understand that most of the post-war buildings in the center of Berlin (i.e. GDR-built) are considered ugly by most and that there are calls to change this by replacing them.
The problem is that, while I personally hate most modern (post-1990) architecture with a passion, I believe it's not progressive (I lack a better word) for a city of Berlin's status and history to simply rebuild its past (as already done with: Kommandantur, Adlon Hotel, Bauakademie).

The current plans to reconstruct most of the historic center of Berlin (Stadtschloss, Fischerinsel, Molkenmarkt, Spittelmarkt, Marx-Engels-Platz) according to pre-war building footprints(!) is in my eyes a huge move backward for a city of today.
No one would think about rebuilding the pre-Haussmann Paris, either! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Haussmann)

They're not sorted very user-friendly, though. Clicking through the categories at the bottom of the individual picture's pages helps.

A few examples:

Emperor Wilhelm's Memorial Church after the war and today:

Karl-Marx-Allee

Construction of the Fernsehturm:
Much of Alexanderplatz is still in ruins:
They pre-built the whole globe on ground-level first, then deconstructed it and again reconstructed it on the tower. I have no idea why. Maybe they wanted to check if they had all the parts

Brandenburg Gate after the Cold War.
Roughly the same view today:image hosted on flickr

The current plans to reconstruct most of the historic center of Berlin (Stadtschloss, Fischerinsel, Molkenmarkt, Spittelmarkt, Marx-Engels-Platz) according to pre-war building footprints(!) is in my eyes a huge move backward for a city of today.

Let me say this, while mentioning the name of this thread :
Up to now only reconstruction seems to be the way to heal all wounds without disfiguring the city with ugly scars.
Modern architecture just wasn't able to heal anything yet.

Let me say this, while mentioning the name of this thread :
Up to now only reconstruction seems to be the way to heal all wounds without disfiguring the city with ugly scars.
Modern architecture just wasn't able to heal anything yet.

I have to disagree here. What we need is a modern interpretation of urban living, not an imitation of the over-idealized past. I dont want another pseudo-medieval city quarter in Berlin like the Nikolaiviertel. I do not oppose reconstructions in general, but I think that we should be able to create architecture that has is functional and liveable.

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I agree, that it is not an option to rebuild all pre-war buildings and pull down everything of the post-war period. But nobody wants to go that far. In allmost all parts of Berlin there is no question about building modern.
But in the very historic center it should be allowed to reconstruct some of the buildings which were distinctive and unique and determined the cityscape.
I further think it is a good idea to reurbanise some parts of central East Berlin. It just not an good idea to have motorway-like streets with 10-lanes and stand-alone blocks with no structure and a lot of green around it in the city centre. However, that's rather a question of urban development than architecture.

I agree, that it is not an option to rebuild all pre-war buildings and pull down everything of the post-war period. But nobody wants to go that far. In allmost all parts of Berlin there is no question about building modern. But in the very historic center it should be allowed to reconstruct some of the buildings which were distinctive and unique and determined the cityscape.
I further think it is a good idea to reurbanise some parts of central East Berlin. It just not an good idea to have motorway-like streets with 10-lanes and stand-alone blocks with no structure and a lot of green around it in the city centre. However, that's rather a question of urban development than architecture.

I have to disagree here. What we need is a modern interpretation of urban living, not an imitation of the over-idealized past. I dont want another pseudo-medieval city quarter in Berlin like the Nikolaiviertel...

When I say reconstruction, I mean faithful reconstruction. I think the Nikolaiviertel looks in many parts almost ugly. Because it's so obviously fake and cheap (those Platten surrounding the Saint George statue for example). If there's no chance at all to recontruct faitfully, but just cheap and fake like here, I actually prefer modern architecture too. But then please ultra, hyper modern. And not that generic boxes, you find anywhere.

I have to disagree here. What we need is a modern interpretation of urban living, not an imitation of the over-idealized past. I dont want another pseudo-medieval city quarter in Berlin like the Nikolaiviertel. I do not oppose reconstructions in general, but I think that we should be able to create architecture that has is functional and liveable.

That's very well spoken, miau! The main purpose for any building is to use it/to live in it and not to watch it from the outside.
Public spaces - especially in the inner city - however need to offer some quality of stay. Alexanderplatz does not provide this yet.
This is not a fault of modern architecture but a lack in large-scale town planning. The ideological gap between socialistic and capitalistic town planning is just too obvious here. That makes Alexanderplatz so interesting.
Not beautiful, just interesting!